


Triskelion

by AlannaofRoses



Category: Leverage
Genre: Episode: s03e11 The Rashomon Job, Multi, OT3 Soulmates, Soulmarks, Soulmates, character backstories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25040281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlannaofRoses/pseuds/AlannaofRoses
Summary: Soulmarks aren't a perfect system. Sometimes you miss your chance at finding the one who completes your mark. And sometimes you get a chance, five years later, to put things right.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 16
Kudos: 216





	Triskelion

They say you get your soulmark when you take the first step down the path that leads you to your partner. Some are born with them, their lives inevitably entwined with the one they are made to find. Some get it by making a small decision; enrolling in college, moving to a new city, turning right instead of left at a fork in the road. Some people’s soulmarks never appear at all, the choice that would lead them to their soulmate never made. Some soulmarks appear, but never gain the vibrant color that comes from finding your one special person. It’s an imperfect system, but most can’t help but believe that someday, somewhere, they will find the person who fills their black outlines with color.

Parker got her soulmarks, one on each wrist, the day she ran away from the last in a string of foster homes and met an old man who offered to teach her how to become the best thief the world had ever seen. She almost laughed when she saw them. Love wasn’t for people like her. Relationships were messy, painful. Letting someone into your heart gave them power over you, tied you down like gravity. Parker wasn’t going to let anyone have that kind of hold over her. She covered her marks with synthetic skin patches on every job. Even if they stained with the bright color that meant she had crossed paths with her soulmates, she didn’t want to know. They’d most likely be a thief like her, and she wasn’t letting anyone steal her heart.

Hardison got his soulmarks the day the social worker dropped him off at Nana’s house. She’d had six other kids in the house at the time, and little Brenda was in the middle of a bout of flu. In desperation, Nana had parked Hardison in front of her desktop in hopes of keeping him busy until she could properly show him around. He couldn’t have spent more than fifteen minutes there, fascinated by the device, before he noticed the swirling black designs forming on his wrists. From that moment on, computers and Hardison’s soulmates were forever connected in his head. He studied everything he could about them, learning how to use them to find information, even and especially from places where that information was kept hidden and secret. Perhaps, if he opened enough firewalls, crawled enough databases, secured enough secrets, one day he’d turn on his computer and there they’d be.

Eliot never talks about the day he got his soulmarks. The blood and the gunfire and the screams are forever etched in his memory, as is the moment he looked down and saw the black ink ripple over his wrists. He knew even before he saw them that his soulmate wasn’t Aimee. It made it easier, perhaps, when he got home to find her in someone else’s arms. She was apologetic, even as she glowed with the knowledge that she had found her person, her wrist all pinks and oranges. Eliot had smiled over the sound of his breaking heart and brushed a kiss against her cheek. He had gone on to liberate Croatia, and sitting in the darkness after, more blood on his hands, he wondered what kind of monster he would become to have a soulmate born of blood and war.

It is in an Art and Antiquities museum, Hardison pretending to choke, Eliot knelt behind him, Parker brandishing a knife, that it happens. Hardison and Eliot’s arms are hidden beneath sleeves, Parkers wrists under the patches. None of them notices the faint itching as their wrists burst into color.

Hardison notices first. He’s barely out of the museum before he’s pulling off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves. He stops dead, staring in wonder and horror at the red and blue swirls. His first instinct is to run back into the museum, search every person until he finds them. He had passed by his soulmates and never known! Still, he calms himself. He can find them later, use his skills to track them. He’ll just have to get the security footage and look into everyone he crossed paths with.

Parker peels off the patches once she’s home. The sight of the yellow and blue staining her wrists sickens her. That had been close. Thankfully, it seemed either her soulmate also hadn’t noticed, or they felt the same way she did about the whole affair. Regardless, Parker could relax. It was over. She’d never see any of the people from that stupid museum again.

Eliot doesn’t see the marks for two days. He’d changed out of the Wes Abernathy suit in pitch darkness, stopping by his safe house only long enough to do that and grab his go bag. Without the item he had been sent to retrieve, it was only a matter of time before more goons came after him, and he’d prefer they not find him flat-footed. Thus, he’s practically on the other side of the world before he realizes what had happened. The red and yellow are almost pretty against his skin. He wonders when he had crossed paths with the ones who had put them there. He feels a faint pang of regret that he had missed his chance.

“It was the perfect plan.” Sophie begins, all four of her teammates smirking privately to themselves as she crossed paths with their personas, never knowing who they were. It’s only when Eliot, laughing, reveals himself as Wes Abernathy that something starts to bother Hardison.

He’d searched, see, after the museum. He’d looked for any hint that any of the guest he’d past might have been his soulmate. He’d found almost everyone, save for a handful of random characters. The Duchess, who he now knew was Sophie, but she wasn’t his soulmate. After they had lost Nate, the first time, Sophie had drunkenly admitted to them, well, mostly Eliot but Hardison and Parker had been in the room, that she had lost her soulmate long ago. She’d shown them her mark, a faded purple bloom over her shoulder blade.

The others Hardison had never found were a Doctor Wes Abernathy, now revealed as Eliot. There had been a random blond waitress who had offered the doctor a knife, and Hardison hadn’t been able to find any record of her on the staff lists. A dark-haired guy he’d brushed past on his way out, his face never caught on camera.

Was Eliot his soulmate? Hardison glanced at Eliot’s wrists involuntarily, but like most professional criminals, he suspected Eliot wore the synthetic skin patches made to hide soulmarks. If Eliot did have soulmarks, and Hardison didn’t know for sure that he did, they could be anywhere. Besides, that would be weird, right? Eliot wasn’t his soulmate. Chance meeting five years ago or not, that was way too much of a coincidence.

So when Hardison took up his own thread of the story, he left out the soulmarks. He didn’t want anyone’s pity. He’d missed his chance, and that was that. He did wonder if either Sophie or Eliot had seen his soulmate in the crowd as well. Maybe they had talked to them, bumped into them. It soured the retelling a bit, though he still enjoyed himself. It wasn’t often he got to pull one over on Eliot, much less on Sophie as well!

Until Parker grinned at Nate, and started her own retelling. Until the blond waitress leaned over Hardison’s persona, close enough to trigger a soulmark. He almost wants to ask her right then and there. Still, wouldn’t she have said something? If she had gotten her mark that night too, why wouldn’t she have announced it, even if only now and to this group of people she trusted? So he waited.

Nate finished up the retellings, all of them groaning at the final reveal. Still, they weren’t too upset, all told. It had been a fun night, then and now, and finding out the dagger was still out there just waiting to be stolen from its new owner was its own sort of thrill.

In the race to re-steal the dagger, Hardison almost managed to forget about the whole soulmates issue. Sure, talking about that night had dragged up some of the old hurt of that ordeal. But it wasn’t like he hadn’t found something wonderful all in itself. With the dagger re-liberated (Parker had had the actual moment of victory, though they had all contributed to the final plan), Sophie and Nate had gone off to do whatever they did after successful jobs, leaving the three younger members of the team at the bar.

Eliot was nursing a beer, relaxed and content in a way Hardison had rarely seen him. Parker is perched near his shoulder, her feet swinging free under the bar, occasionally brushing Eliot’s knee. Hardison himself is on the opposite side, but he’s folded over towards them, leaning in. His orange soda sits untouched next to Parker’s apple juice, the latest tool in Eliot’s campaign to get her to eat healthier.

He doesn’t know why he chooses to open his mouth. Maybe it’s the domesticity of the scene. Maybe it’s the raw wounds reopened from that night. Maybe he hopes, in some private corner of his heart, that his search is finally over.

“I left a bit out of my story.” Hardison says.

Parker hums and tilts her head towards him.

The words choke him, tying his vocal cords into knots.

“Well?” Eliot drawls, tipping the beer towards him.

“My soulmarks.” He blurts.

The room goes dead silent.

“What?” Parker squeaks. She looks about ready to take flight, shrinking back towards Eliot, who puts out a hand to keep her from toppling off the counter.

Only way out is through. “Yeah, I, uh, I got my soulmarks that night.” He doesn’t meet their eyes as he scratches at the seam between his wrist and the patch, peeling off one and then the other so they can see the vivid swirls of blue and red. “Never did find out who they were, though.”

Eliot is still, so still Hardison is afraid he’s turned to stone. A sinking feeling starts in his chest. They’d never talked about soulmates. Other than Sophie, they knew nothing about the rest of the teams. What if Eliot’s soulmate was dead? What if Hardison had just twisted a knife into the hitter’s heart with his careless reveal?

Parker is staring at Hardison’s soulmark with wide eyes. She looks fragile, scared, and Hardison isn’t sure Eliot won’t punch him so he decides to try and deal with her reaction first.

“Hey mama,” He says soothingly. “you okay there? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

Parker’s eyes snap up to his face, searching. “You?”

“You what?” Hardison asks, confused now.

Parker gulps and scratches at her own wrists, the synthetic skin peeling away. Hardison almost chokes when he sees the bright yellow and blue design.

“Parker, are you… are you saying…”

She’s trembling. “I saw them that night, but I didn’t want… I never thought I would want a soulmate. I was so relieved when I noticed them. I thought I would never have to deal with having to reject someone I barely even knew.”

Hardison swallows. “And now?”

Parker’s eyes are lost. “I… I don’t know. I never expected…” She backs away a step, not quite panicking but getting close. She’s distracted enough that she bumps into Eliot, who flinches hard.

Right. Both of Hardison’s teammates are freaking out.

Wait.

No.

No way.

“Eliot?” Hardison hopes his voice isn’t as strangled as it sounds. “Is… what… are you…” He can’t find the words.

Eliot’s face is ashen. “You aren’t monsters.”

“What?”

“I…” Eliot touches his wrist, but his hands are shaking too hard to do what he wants.

Parker wraps her fingers around his wrist, comfort and request in one. He lets her worry the seam of fake and real skin until his patch peels off, completing their circle of soulmarks with his own rippling yellow and red.

They stand stunned for a long moment, their bare wrists on display.

Hardison looks at these two strange, wonderful people. He knows, of the three of them, that he is probably the only one who has no mixed feelings about this. His stomach is champagne bubbles of euphoric joy. He’d found them, at last. After searching for so long, they had found each other.

“So,” he smiles as he starts the conversation that will define the rest of their lives, “what do we do now?”


End file.
